Why do white supremacists want to kill Black people? | Derecka Purnell

What are the roots of this violence and how do we fight it?

After a century of attempts by Black activists and lawmakers, President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act on the White House lawn, surrounded by Black politicians, clergy, and nonprofit leaders. The new federal law makes lynching a hate crime. Representative Bobby Rush, the bill's sponsor in the House of Representatives, called the moment a day of enormous consequence for our nation." But I had questions. Doubts really. Do white supremacists kill Black people because we did not have a federal anti-lynching law? If not, then does Congress think that such a law will be a deterrent? Will federal prosecutors listen to Black families who say their children were lynched - or to police and coroners who call suspicious deaths suicides"? Will this law punish civilians for violence but reward them if they join police departments?

I sent my editor a draft of an essay questioning the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act. I did not have the energy to respond to the potential backlash from readers, so I sat on my criticisms, reflected on my arguments and prayed that I would be wrong. Then last week, an 18 year old white supremacist drove to a grocery store in Buffalo, New York and murdered 10 Black people. He published a manifesto espousing his horrific views and penciled a racial slur on his gun. Maybe he hadn't heard about the consequences listed in the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act. Or, maybe he was willing to accept them in exchange for the lives he took. Cops arrested him like they arrested white supremacist shooter Dylann Roof- alive and with care.

Derecka Purnell is a Guardian US columnist. She is also a social movement lawyer and writer based in Washington, DC. She is the author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom